


Worse Off

by grindly



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Horniness, Loneliness, Masturbation, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 06:19:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7746415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grindly/pseuds/grindly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>long nights and an empty bed. don't pretend like this is anything new. (Jason Todd is lonely and gives himself some loving cos he doesn't have anyone to do it for him]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worse Off

It had been a long fuckin night when Jason finally managed to crawl back to his shitty apartment in the Narrows.

He slipped in through the window with all the grace of limp spaghetti. His boot caught the windowsill and the Red Hood: Scourge of the Underworld, tripped and landed face-down on the floor with a heavy thud. His knives went skittering out of his pockets and slid across the floor.

"Fuck." he hissed, into the empty blackness of his apartment. Not that there was anyone around to hear it.

Although he would've loved to just lie there, Jason used the long barrel of his sniper rifle as a makeshift crutch to lever himself back up on his feet, and he stumbled back against the wall, gasping for breath as he clutched his side. He wrenched his helmet off his head, fumbled around for the light switch and smacked it on. For some reason the flickering, fluorescent lighting didn't make the sight of his apartment any more pleasant.

Jason had to stop doing this. Working like this. The months of back to back patrols with little sleep had finally caught up with him. Jason had been careless and he knew he had gotten exactly what he deserved; lucky for him it was just a knife this time, instead of a bullet.

Even when he worked with Batman, he had never gone out for more than four consecutive nights, and even that was pushing it. As headstrong as Bruce was, he knew that overexertion could a lead to an oversight, or worse.

Jason's schedule was reckless and stupid and Bruce would have disapproved, but maybe that was the point.

Maybe it beat coming home an empty apartment, with nothing to keep him company except for his own shitty thoughts.

As much as Jason didn’t want to admit it, life on his own was getting lonely.

He pulled his hand away from his wound. Blood soaked into his glove and he made a noise of irritation because was his last pair and this meant he'd have to do laundry tomorrow and he fucking hated doing laundry.

Jason limped into the kitchen. He tossed his helmet and keys aside, pulled off his utility belt and dropped it on the floor before wrenching open the fridge. One can of beer sat in the back, which he promptly cracked open and downed without a second thought.

He leaned against his counter, staring off into space. It wasn’t exactly a meal, but it was something.

A trail of blood marked his path from the window, and was now streaked across the fridge door. He didn't care. He sat there for a good long while before a wet splat noise caught his attention.

Jason looked down to see blood dripping onto the kitchen floor.

Right. He was still bleeding.

Jason placed the can down and ambled off into the bathroom. That’s where he began the arduous task of pulling off his body armour. The knife wound in his side had blackened and fused slightly to the kevlar plating. Jason hissed as he peeled it off.

The now-revealed cut gaped like a pink, ugly mouth. It drooled thick, dark blood, but it wasn’t deep enough to be anything that Jason couldn’t stitch up on his own. Bruce _had_ taught him a thing or two, after all.

Jason unhooked the latches and straps of his uniform, and he allowed the blood-crusted kevlar plate armour fall to the floor. He stripped down until his torso was bare, grabbed the first aid kit from the cupboard and began to clean up his wound. The disinfectant tickled his nose with the stinging scent of rubbing alcohol. It burned as he poured it against the cut, but Jason didn't even flinch.

He acted quickly and automatically, his mouth set in a firm line as he worked. He stitched up his the cut with as much accuracy as he could muster, given than he could barely reach it. Not for the first time that evening, Jason mused on how a second pair of hands would have been nice to have around.

After a fair bit of struggling, the cut was stitched. Jason tied it up with a knot and quickly snipped off the remaining thread. The scar wasn’t going to be pretty when it healed, but Jason figured it didn't even matter. It’s not like anyone was going to see it anyway.

He tried not to feel too bitter about that.

Automatically and perhaps to distract himself from that line of thinking, Jason picked up the piece of body armour that had gotten the most blood on it, and he ran it under the tap. Red swirled down the drain as he turned it over in his hands.

That's when he made the mistake of looking up to the mirror.

All at once Jason felt incredibly sorry for the person who looked back.

He looked like literal garbage and he felt worse. His bare torso was covered in ugly yellow and black bruises, on top of the scars that were a permanent fixture at this point. His hands were shaking with some hellish combination of severe exhaustion and anxiety. But worst of all were his eyes. His eyes looked completely dead. They were sunken and ringed in dark black circles and looked back at him with terrifying honesty.

What a looker, he thought sarcastically. A real dreamboat here. Was it any wonder that he was still spending his nights alone?

Jason threw the piece of body armour down and slammed the tap off.

All at once, he was done.

The bathroom was a mess. The entire counter was covered in the remains of a used first aid kit. Blood decorated every surface he had touched, and pieces of his uniform were all over the floor. But Jason was finished. It was bedtime and this shit could wait.

Jason kicked off his boots, ambled to the bedroom and immediately threw himself down onto the bed despite the stitch in his side.

Every part of him ached. The stitches pulled every time he took a breath. His neck was absolutely killing him and his back felt tight and knotted. All of his muscles were sprained from overuse and wracked by the occasional painful spasm. He looked up at the ceiling and thought about how nice a massage would’ve been right about now

The thought sullied his already darkened mood. Jason rolled over and scowled at the empty spot next to him.

He thought about how Dick was probably in some cushy bed, sleeping next to a girl after sneaking in from his nightly patrol. Even Tim, as insecure as he was, always seemed to be joined at the hip with Kon-El, and the kid blushed whenever his name came up.

But Jason? It didn’t seem to matter whether he was a kid, teen or adult. Loneliness just seemed to be the one constant in Jason's life. He had a fleeting era of family and belonging, but he’d been booted out of it as quickly as he’d fallen in. He didn't fit into that. He wasn't meant to belong to anything or anyone. Those times were over now and it was time to move on.

Jason had long ago accepted that he lived a life of doing what had to be done. The “work" he did was thankless and isolating. It didn’t afford him luxuries like back massages or home cooked meals, or companionship.

Or intimacy.

Jason growled and made a noise of frustration. What the fuck was wrong with him? It wasn’t like him to get all wistful like this. He knew he was exhausted and he was just having a late-night bout of stupid thoughts, but he really wished his brain would just shut up and let him rest.

He rolled over and tried to fool himself into falling asleep. After a few moments he realized that wasn’t going to happen. With a sigh, he unzipped the fly of his pants, and he rested his hand on his stomach, as if he was playing coy with himself about what he was about to do.

His sex life was just another one of his needs that had been completely neglected.

It had been months since he’d even found the time to touch himself. After going without for so long, his muscles weren’t the only thing that needed a good rub down.

Jason let his hand slide down his abs, to the waistband of his pants.

He allowed his eyes to drift shut and tried not to think too hard about what was happening. It’s not that it wasn't a completely normal thing for a dude to do. It was just that fact that the thoughts leading up to it were, frankly, kind of fucking embarrassing. Here he was moping away about something as petty as needing some love and care and having no one to get it from. And Jason wasn’t like that.

He would never, for example, glance over at the empty spot in his bed and wish someone were there next to him. He would never slip his hand under his briefs, to wrap around his cock, and imagine that the hand doing it belonged to someone else.

That shit was cheesy and Jason didn't do cheesy.

Jason tipped his head back as he stroked himself.

It had been so long since he'd done this that the mere sensation of his hand around his cock felt overwhelming and almost unfamiliar. He was so fucking sensitive.

Jason relaxed into it, feeling the tension in his body melt with each stroke. He hadn't even realized how badly he needed this. He'd just completely shoved this part of him aside in favour of his mission, instead resorting to working his issues out with aggression. A small voice in his head told him that it wouldn't have been out of character for a certain someone else to do.

Jason ignored that thought. He didn't need thoughts of Bruce to ruin his self-lovin' sessions, along with everything else.

His breathing hitched and he groaned lowly. His toes curled and he helplessly kicked at the sheets, tangling them. He was so starved for touch that he was already close. Pathetic, he thought. He was acting like a teenager. His heavily lidded gaze darkened with exhaustion and lust, and finally his inhibitions had dropped enough that he just didn't care anymore. He gave in and he allowed himself, just this once, to fantasize.

Jason imagined hands on him. He imagined hands touching him. Fixing him. Caring for him. Holding him.

He imagined lips against his own, lips just barely brushing against his ear, telling him he was worth a damn.

He imagined being cherished, just once, in his entire miserable goddamn life.

Jason came with a broken sob. The noise he made was helpless and small and utterly pitiful and when it was over, Jason was left shuddering, gasping and completely spent.

But by the end of it, nothing had changed. Jason just couldn't find it in himself to feel any better.


End file.
